ABSTRACT
Football and politics have been linked inextricably in Serbia since the collapse of Yugoslavia in 1991. This article examines the Serbian state’s reluctant struggle with football-related violence and political extremism in the period from 2009 until 2011. The analysis rotates around the Gay Pride Parades in Serbia, which have become an annual contested event pitting progressive and pro-European forces against a ‘patriotic’ coalition of extreme nationalist organizations, associations of football hooligans and the Serbian Orthodox Church. Despite Serbia’s ostensibly reformist path and its professed desire to advance rapidly towards membership in the European Union, the state’s reaction to threats and acts of violence against proponents of Gay Pride has to date been hesitant, ambiguous and inconclusive.
